PATSY R. BRUMFIELD: When weird news makes fiction flat

Wow, you know, some weeks the News Gods just give it up with abundance. Thanks.Item 1 – Traveling Governors
How can we go another day without asking what South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford was doing in Argentina, when everybody thought he was innocently but inconveniently hiking the Appalachian Trail.
“He must have been with a woman,” I told someone Wednesday morning.
Bingo – by 2 p.m. Google, CNN and everybody else were reporting Sanford’s confession to falling in love with an Argentine woman and having an extramarital affair.
“The bottom line is this: I’ve been unfaithful to my wife,” he said during a news conference yesterday. “I’ve developed a relationship with a dear, dear friend from Argentina.”
You’ve also developed a rash of problems, one which is that you won’t be running for president on the GOP ticket in 2012. I’d also say your judgment is under question.
I guess the moral there is that if you’re going to have an extramarital affair, have it with somebody who’s available within the continental United States.
Of course, your Aunt Sally is going to see you in that dimly lit restaurant or coming out of Motel 6 with your paramour. It’s a certainty.
But at least you won’t have to give up your frequent-flier miles in the divorce settlement.
Speaking of running for president, our own Gov. Haley Barbour is out on the hustings this week.
I participated in a teleconference with him Tuesday and he railed against the Legislature for not giving him what he wanted for a state budget, eight days before the start of the new fiscal year.
I was going to ask what he was doing, speaking from Washington, D.C., with plans to visit New Hampshire and Iowa while thousands of state employees worried they wouldn’t have jobs on July 1 and the rest of us wouldn’t have anybody to deliver a wide variety of services we’ve become accustomed to.
Gov. Barbour is a big promoter of economic development, but he seems to have failed to realize that if all these people are put out of work, and certain functions can’t be handled via state employees, Mississippi’s economy could become a catastrophe within the national catastrophe.
Oops, maybe he forgot about that part. But at least he wasn’t in Argentina.Item 2 – Related subjects
Speaking of Gov. Sanford and his increased familial difficulties, those awful Jon and Kate Gosselins of “Jon & Kate Plus 8″ monopolized the TV airwaves this week to announce they will divorce as fast as they can split up all the goods they accumulated from the proceeds of their awful reality show about how great they are at raising eight kids – one pair of twins and a set of sextuplets.
If you’re equally excited at the prospect of their finding real jobs off television, calm down. They seem to have realized they’ve still got a gig, together or not.
Maybe Mark Sanford can get a job walking their dogs.
Contact Patsy R. Brumfield at (662) 678-1596 or patsy.brumfield@djournal.com. Also follow her on Twitter/RealNewsQueen or Facebook.